Superior Court of Justice (STJ) rules that a judge can access the accused's social media accounts to justify pre-trial detention.

The Fifth Panel of the Superior Court of Justice decided, in a unanimous vote, that judges can consult public profiles of those under investigation on social media and use this information as grounds for ordering preventive detention and other precautionary measures.

The Court's conclusion is that this consultation does not violate the adversarial system and does not compromise the judge's impartiality. The proceedings are being conducted in secret.

In this specific case, a lawsuit was filed with the Superior Court of Justice against a judge who consulted the defendant's profiles when evaluating a request for pretrial detention. His goal was to verify data mentioned in the complaint.

The defense argued that there was a violation of the accusatory system, since the judge had exceeded his role by directly participating in the collection of evidence.

The plaintiff lost the lawsuit in the Santa Catarina Court of Justice and, therefore, took legal action against the Superior Court of Justice (STJ).

For the rapporteur of the appeal, Joel Ilan Paciornik , the judge acted within the limits of the accusatory system when carrying out a supplementary diligence based on public data.

“Specifically regarding the fact that the judge carried out the consultation in person, there is a procedural economy measure, given the ease of access to public information available on social media,” he argued.

Paciornik also argued that the interpretation is in line with the understanding of the Supreme Federal Court in four cases in which it recognized that the judge can order, ex officio, the carrying out of diligences to clarify relevant points, hear witnesses or supplement the hearings.